Check #ghostposting for textual ghosts

Sorrel|20s|it/its|PFP is from ANOTHER BEAST HAS RUN INTO FLOWERS (1983) by Maria Pryimachenko

[magicalmanhattanproject]

you want to get into women's rugby. watch the video.

[ruinedchildhood]

[cedardivine]

no wait yknow what. it gets its own post

everyone gets onto eva stratt for the "think about it long time" vs. "you have three hours" thing but

operating on book canon a little bit: if grace couldn't do it-- if he said no*-- the alternative was to scramble and fly in the next most qualified volunteer, who had 0 training, 0 knowledge of astrophage, and was not an astronaut. three hours could have been three hours of training for that replacement. three hours could have been three hours of preparation for grace, if he said yes

eva stratt gave grace three hours. not to decide, necessarily, because the decision was going to be made the way it was no matter what. but three hours to come to terms with it, to grieve, to mentally prepare himself. three hours that could have been spent giving humanity a better chance to survive

she borrowed three hours that she didn't have to give grace space to process. to get himself together and come to her, teary-eyed but resolved, and say yes.

and he still said no to her. she gave him everything and he said no. he forced her to force him. she gave him three hours she didn't have. i feel so sick about eva stratt

[halethleia]

hey so fun fact!!! the directors said that stratt left these as a gift for grace

the medallion is also confirmed to be st christopher: the patron saint of travelers. it’s a symbol of good luck, guidance and protection on a journey

so you know. i’m really normal and fine about this

[ceruleana]

Eva Stratt's pov of phm is kinda insane really. Because it's basically being told, hey humanity WILL go extinct soon. but we've decided that if one person makes it through all the levels of the Torment Nexus our chances of survival might increase. they might also not. Anyway. We think you're the best person to do this. Your reward is that everyone will hate you forever.

And you're like well. I'd rather trust myself to the fate of the world than anyone else. And I'd rather not let anyone else suffer the Torment Nexus just because of my own feelings. That seems kinda selfish. Alright sure.

So you enter the Torment Nexus. Each level has you pressing buttons like, [abduct innocent scientists to your vat: chances of humanity's survival increases by 0.005%] [everyone disliked that] [congrats! your moral goodness has decreased!].

The later levels get even worse. [blow up Antarctica: chances of humanity's survival increases by, ummm who knows ????] [total humans negatively affected: ????] [congrats! you're an ecoterrorist!].

Then you reach the final level. It reads: [through this door you'll break the news to your friend that he needs to die.] And you're like, wait he has to die??? I have to tell him?? But that's incredibly fucked up. After I went through the Torment Nexus as well. But it's the last level. So oh well. I can do this I suppose. Rather me than anyone else.

You enter the level and you friend is standing next to a cliff. You go over to him and say, hey this really fucking sucks but I've just learnt you need to jump off the cliff. Then we might be able to save humanity for real though. Maybe billions of people can survive if this works.

Then he turns to you and is like, are you fucking insane? And starts sprinting away from the cliff. Suddenly you have a gun in your hand. You're like, no wait. I don't want to do this. For real? I gotta shoot him for real? [Chances of survival if he lives: 0%. Chances of survival if he dies: maybe NOT 0%......????]. You pull the trigger. [congrats! you're a murderer!]

[everythingitmeans2b]

Eva "cry later, mission first" Stratt when it is time to cry later right now

[ceruleana]

eva stratt makes me so fucking unwell because. imagine months of making hard call after hard call because you gotta, because someone's gotta, and this time it has to be you. and she keeps strong despite it, she keeps going. then the fucking pit in her stomach she must have felt, when she realized that Grace was her only option left. the horror of that realization. having to steel herself for the task. only to have him beg and plead and cry. her friend. how did she not throw up. how did she manage it. eva stratt the woman ever, how many people out there would have the sheer force of will, to be able to pull the trigger on their friend to save all humanity. and she didn't even know if it would work. she didn't know. for years. she didn't know if murdering her friend was worth the gamble. she just had to believe in him. fucking hell.

[morallygrayautisticscientist]

Stratt, standing in front of a room of Important People TM: What we are about to watch for the first time is recordings from the Project Hail Mary. These videos may very well save humanity. Press play.

Grace, on recording: I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE WHAT I’M DOING.

Voice from back of room: welp, we’re fucked, it was nice having life on Eath while it lasted.

Stratt: Please remain silent. I assure you he has this under control. He’s got this.

Grace, on recording: THE WAY IN WHICH I DON’T GOT THIS.

[suspiciouspurplelemon]

my first and probably only PHM fanart

[shrugsinchinese]

Let’s pray

Print <3

[wavezies]

inevitable

[valeriapryanikova]

hope has blood on her hands

[acormorantcalls]

imagine forcibly sending your second in command to space and erasing his memory and having made peace with it for 26 years but then you finally get the back the information that will save the world and you find out that he woke up all alone because the other two died on the way and he didn't know what was going on and he was so scared but he manages to make first contact and he figures it all out anyway AND he might be able to go home with the astrophysics the alien gives him and you feel a part of your heart that hasn't felt alive in decades start to beat again because he might come back in just a few months if what he's saying is right and then you watch the last log and it turns out he needs to go back to save an alien species and he is going to starve to death and you feel the grief all over again.

[blue-sunshine-mauve-morning]

One detail from the book that didn't make it into the movie that I think is neat is that Eva Stratt did not just stumble across Ryland Grace. He was not the 'potentially disposable' option. She went to the top microbiologists in some of the best research labs in the world and was told multiple times "you know what? I think Dr. Grace might be your guy." When discussing the Petrova Problem. And this several years after his ejection from academia.

[rainecreatesstuff]

Eva Stratt really did bring a nervous shaking dog into a room full of wolves and said everybody clap for him or I’ll blow this whole building up. Absolutely nobody is doing it like her. Captain of the Pathetic Little Guy Club.

[autisticlittleguy]

Grace and Rocky are living in like this whimsical space adventure. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Eva Stratt just ordered her fifth assassination this week trying to stop WW3. The other day she replaced Jeff Bezos with a homonculus clone grown in a lab so she can repurpose Amazon into a humanitarian aid distribution network. She had a team of lawyers trick a demon into extending her lifespan by 30 years just so she can live to see through Project Hail Mary.

[somepomegranatetea]

she's platonic about it but in my opinion, stratt 100% treats grace as her dead wife. she keeps a tacky fox trinket in her coat pocket. there's a framed photo of him in her study . he's grinning goofily in it (bc he's a dork). new guy like: is that her husband? / no, dumbass, it's dr. ryland grace, 1/3 of the hail mary mission. / oh, fuck. were they... ? / yeah, it's unclear. black-and-white montages of grace messing around in high-level meetings play every time stratt contemplates committing more environmental crimes. she looks up at the night sky and vaguely wonders if he's enjoying his space ramen. that's her dead wife. she killed him.